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You would go stircrazy shortly going from a house to an RV like that, I took a 2 week RV trip and was happy to go home at the end of the trip.
LOL. Growing up my wife lived in a RV as a kid, and has done it as a adult. As a kid I lived in a sears shed, and later a teepee, then as a teen a mobile home.
As adults we've both lived in small travel trailers before. So we are unlikely to go too stir crazy
LOL. Growing up my wife lived in a RV as a kid, and has done it as a adult. As a kid I lived in a sears shed, and later a teepee, then as a teen a mobile home.
As adults we've both lived in small travel trailers before. So we are unlikely to go too stir crazy
Would it be cheaper to just lease an RV for a year rather than buy one ?
Then just stick to places where you can hook up.
Would it be cheaper to just lease an RV for a year rather than buy one ?
Then just stick to places where you can hook up.
Not really. Renting and leasing Rv's is a lot more expensive then you might expect. One of the reasons for looking at a larger RV is actually the roof space for solar panels, and the large water, and waste tanks. In order to avoid the hookups, and the expenses associated. Basically its pay more ahead to avoid costs later.
Of course the bad side of a larger rv is gas mileage. Truly truly amazingly bad gas mileage. If we were wanting to stick to places we could just hookup...well...might as well just look at renting a apartment then. Me and the wife truly enjoy being far away from everyone.
Although I will admit theres some discussion of going smaller for better gas mileage. Tradeoffs on it though.
OK, it sounds like you know what you are getting into.
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Has anyone done something similar to this on the boards here?
I have not, so this is somewhat theoretical...
Have you investigated the new Tesla battery or similar tech? It sounds like it will make solar a lot more practical by giving you far greater storage capacity. Small generators will almost always cost more per watt than being on the grid when you factor in everthing (purchase, maintenance, fuel and your time). Noise and reliability are also issues.
If I were working on software like that, I would definitely consider cloud based development. Something like Rackspace to host a VM if it needs to be PC based or one of the competing cloud platforms if it doesn't. Some have free accounts for solo users.
Have you crunched numbers on this ?
Do you have a plan B ?
Is this a spur of the moment idea or have you been plotting and planning this for a while ?
If you are not in a rush to do this then you can do it in stages.
Sell the house and rent close by and continue to work.
The house is gone and you have money in the bank to start planning plus still making a salary of which you can now save more.
Plan for when the lease is up to be in the RV ready to go.
Considering a change in lifestyle/early retirement for me and the wife. She's disabled, And Im a software engineer for a large well known multinational. We have a house with a mortgage. I work, and earn a very comfortable wage. However the sheer expenses of the mortgage, and all the other bills associated with things means I am not getting ahead like I would like too. And work is....lets just be charitable and call it stressful. while I am making very good money Im not actually enjoying much of anything in life. The last kid of 8 is looking at moving out this coming summer. I no longer have a responsibility to provide a home for my children.
So we are considering a working retirement. Basically we want to sell the large home, purchase a RV add in 30-40K in customizations, and travel in it, camping on BLM lands, and keeping our expenses as low as possible. While...relaxing. Looking at it, we could sell the house, buy a large RV custom designed for boondocking (ie living in a area without power, water, etc provided), and still have about 50K left, in addition to a guaranteed income of about 700/month. I figure we could manage anywhere from 3-4 years with no other income if we were frugal. Obviously since we are 45 that would be a horrible plan if we weren't thinking of the future. So the plan is...I will take a year to see if I can write some software of my own to make money with, she will work on her books (she has been published-but not for a large income). At the end of that year we will re-evaluate, and if we aren't making it or staying at the same level then I will go back to work.
For me, working for myself, doing the software projects *I* want...thats retirement. I actually can't imagine NOT working or doing anything. But the idea of doing what I want...thats heaven.
You can look at it a couple ways...I want to live in a very large van...down by the river....Or you can consider it exchanging a high stress lifestyle with no actual life, for a life of relaxing in the forest while coding software.
Has anyone done something similar to this on the boards here?
Have you considered that you might not be able "to go back to work" in a year -- or in 3-4 years when you apparently run out of money? There are lots of threads in this forum and in the economics forum about the very real problem of age discrimination. As somebody else mentioned, what about your "real" retirement in 10-20 years, including significantly lowering your SS benefits if your software business doesn't prove profitable and/or you can't return to full time employment?
You're going to be dropping your income from $7000/month or more to only about $700/month. Also is that "guaranteed" income of $700 a month, which is a grand total of about $163 a week, before or after taxes, health insurance, auto/RV insurance, contributions to retirement savings? It seems to me that your finances are too sketchy at this point to do this. If you were already free lancing as a software developer, then you would have a reasonable idea of what you might earn. Now, all you're going with is a wing and a prayer.
Have you considered that you might not be able "to go back to work" in a year -- or in 3-4 years when you apparently run out of money? There are lots of threads in this forum and in the economics forum about the very real problem of age discrimination. As somebody else mentioned, what about your "real" retirement in 10-20 years, including significantly lowering your SS benefits if your software business doesn't prove profitable and/or you can't return to full time employment?
That's likely to happen anyway. In terms of dealing with future risks, I'd personally be more comfortable building a consultancy (assuming that the OPs domain and tech knowledge can be hived off in that way) and being less dependent on a single employer. It's possible to be a W-2 software engineer in your 50's, but it's not common.
Another advantage of self employment, assuming you can crank up the yearly hours, is that you can really triple down on tax deferred savings.
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Also is that "guaranteed" income of $700 a month, which is a grand total of about $163 a week, before or after taxes, health insurance, auto/RV insurance, contributions to retirement savings? It seems to me that your finances are too sketchy at this point to do this. If you were already free lancing as a software developer, then you would have a reasonable idea of what you might earn. Now, all you're going with is a wing and a prayer.
